I’m sad to say I don’t even know if anyone offers classes on RSS or so on but, I’m looking for something more basic and targeted: I want to create a feed for a “static” website (in the sense that it’s not a blog that automatically creates an RSS feed) so that I can podcast mp3 files of my own content (my writing, my voice, no outside copyright issues) to publicize my material. But, this is uncharted territory for me, and I don’t have money to spend on the easiest tools on the market, so I’m asking like this.

Anyway, if not, no problem, I’m just asking while the asking’s good, just in case it’ll get me somewhere. Have a nice day, everyone.

What is your web-site made of? What do you wish to list? Some CMSs have a module that automatically generates the RSS file of the contents.

If you are only creating a feed for a podcast of already existing MP3s then this looks like a good tutorial;
http://www.podcast411.com/howto_1.html

I only glanced at it, but it looks good. I have no desire to be itunes friendly so I would ignore the items in red, but that is your decision.

My current agenda is using already existing mp3’s. I actually used a guide on Google to hammer out a basic RSS feed; aside from one issue of parsing that I didn’t know about (I’m very new to all XML), the html link to the mp3 – which was attached to one of my google sites pages – didn’t come through cleanly at all, so looks like I need to get something with basic ftp.

It’s that or use a service like libsyn.com (which I have looked at while weighing my options).

If you don’t have a place to put the MP3’s or you aren’t comfortable putting the RSS together by hand then I would use libsyn.com. I looked around and they are very well liked, nobody’s reported a security problem with them, and they are used by several security experts. (My respect went up tremendously when I saw Crypto-Gram/Bruce Schneier uses it). Any client that can read an RSS feed will be able to parse it.

XML is very similar to HTML with different tags and more strict about the rules.

I don’t think FTP would have anything to do with the cleanliness of the MP3 playing. The latency on the server or an intermediate server could cause the problem.

Oh, it’s not a matter of the mp3 playing, it’s a matter of the XML validation. There’s an 0&d part to the URL for http download. That’s a snag.

What have you heard about DriveHQ FTP? They have a free hosting option and claim to have real security. (And good options if I want to pay a little, even.)

Anyway, more to the point, I don’t have iTunes access to begin with (never used it), so I’m not sure if that virtually requires me to go libsyn.com if I want broader distribution, or what.

I’m not super familiar with RSS but I would guess that if the URL is workable in your browser it would work in the XML file. The character you mentioned doesn’t look right.

The reviews for DriveHQ I looked at rated it as the best. At first I was skeptical because they seemed to be angled for the enterprise market (online backups) and downloading everything encrypted would mean too much of a time problem for a podcast. But others are using it for podcasts so I assume whatever they do works. However, I would question if their ratings were too good to be real.

I do not use or want to use iTunes (because they use the security sink hole known as “quicktime”). However, others feel the exact opposite as I do and I may be cutting down my share of the market.

I am coming in on the tail end of this discussion so I may be way off the mark… I am not even sure what you are asking so I will just throw this info out there. Learn out loud has a section called teach out loud which allows you to upload your material and they keep it on their site. You can charge for it if you choose…They track the income and pay you as per your arrangements. You can link it to I tunes or another websites for streaming they do have RSS and for my needs best of all they are edufire friendly and endorsed… (see the link for them on the bottom of our landing page) and they do some marketing on their own. They put you in the company of some “heavy hitters” as well as other “smallfry”
Putting content there was easy after you had created it and they even allow you to have an author page and the like with links to whereever you need.
Maybe it might serve you….
All the best
A

Alala, this could be a big deal for me so thank you very much for the referral. I’ll listen to some samples of the “heavy hitters” and look over my options.

Once I have this figured out, I’ll probably go back to a lot more Twitter use to get a presence there to differentiate myself from the pack (hopefully!) and maybe pull outsiders to EduFire for classes. That’s the longer term objective.